The Body between Life and Death: Berengario da Carpi and the Anatomical Image of the Sixteenth Century.

Jacopo Berengario da Carpi is among the most famous anatomists of the so-called “Pre-Vesalian” era. His rise to fame tells the tale of a careful cultivation of powerful patrons accompanied by a lifelong curiosity surrounding the inner workings of the human body. As a protagonist of the ‘anatomical Renaissance’ that unfolded over the course of the sixteenth century, Berengario advocated for the primacy of touch and sight in medical education and clinical practice as described extensively in his printed works. It is impossible to understand the novelty of sixteenth-century anatomy in any other way than looking at the diversity of visual, cultural, and intellectual stimuli that leant themselves to a new, varied, dynamic, and innovative approach to the human body. Berengario’s figure and work stand precisely at the crossroads of the history of medicine, the history of art, and a visual and material history of death and religious ritual. This essay looks at Berengario’s life to understand the social, po-litical, cultural, and visual contexts of Renaissance anatomy. It is precisely for these reasons that this figure serves as an important case study for understanding the med-ical humanities.